The appearance of Chinese balloons in the airspace of the United States and Canada was one of the most impactful news in recent weeks.
Now the Pentagon has released a
photo of one of these balloons
that was taken from a US fighter-bomber.
The image was released this Wednesday, February 22, and shows the
Chinese spy balloon
that the United States
shot down
earlier this month after having crossed its territory.
The photo of the Chinese balloon published by the Pentagon
The snapshot of the huge white object was taken on February 3,
a day before the balloon was
shot down
by firing an AIM-9X Sidewinder
missile
off the waters off South Carolina, after spending days flying over the continental United States.
The photo is captured from above, since
the fighter was flying over the balloon
, and in it you can see the shadow of the plane on the artifact.
Photo: EFE/ US Department of Defense
The pilot took it
from the cockpit
of the fighter when the balloon was somewhere in the center of the United States.
The photo had been released in recent hours by the
CNN
television network and a website called
Dragon Lady Today
, whose name refers to the nickname given to the American U-2 fighters.
The U-2, known as
the Dragon Lady
, is an American spy plane that has been in service since the 1950s.
About the image, the spokeswoman for the
US Department of Defense
, Sabrina Singh, was asked at her press conference about the authenticity of the snapshot published by
Dragon Lady Today
and
pointed out that it is real.
The Chinese spy balloon was located in late January in US airspace and was
shot down over Atlantic waters on February 4
.
The balloon was shot down on February 4.
Photo: REUTERS
At that time, it had been
flying over various areas of the country for days , such as the state of Montana (northwest), where one of the three existing
nuclear missile
silo fields in the United States
is located .
Beijing claimed that the balloon entered US airspace by mistakenly deviating from its trajectory and claimed that it was used for
meteorological purposes
, not espionage, which was
denied by Washington.
In addition to the spy balloon, the United States
shot down three other flying objects this month over its territory and Canada
in a span of eight days: one over Alaska, one over Canada and one over Lake Huron.
Its
origin is still being investigated
by US and Canadian authorities.
The Pentagon announced last Friday, February 17, that Navy ships and submarines
had finished recovering
the huge balloon and its cargo, which fell to pieces over the Atlantic Ocean.
The cargo was recovered from the ocean floor and is being analyzed by the FBI, Singh said at the news conference.
The discovery of the Chinese spy balloon
revived tensions between the United States and China
, eventually leading to the suspension of a trip to Beijing that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was planning to make.
With information from agencies.
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